Ivan Stewart in the office. Photo by Robert Kerian, used with permission.

Off-road racing is, perhaps, motorsport’s hardest test of man and machine. Under the worst possible conditions of heat, dust and unforgiving terrain, drivers must balance the need for velocity with the need to preserve equipment. In the history of the sport, perhaps no single driver has accomplished this to a higher and more consistent degree than Ivan “Ironman” Stewart, whose record of 84 off-road victories (including 17 Baja 500 wins and three Baja 1000 wins) and 10 driver’s championships stands alone. If off-road racing in the 1980s and 1990s has a face, it belongs to Ivan Stewart.

Born in June of 1945, Stewart never planned for a career in racing. An ironworker (and later, a fencing company supervisor) by trade, Stewart raced off-road as his time, budget and family obligations allowed, typically competing with high school friend Bill Hrynko. In 1973, just prior to the start of the Ensenada 300 desert race, Hrynko fell from a ladder and broke his leg, leaving Stewart to drive the race with mechanic Earl Stah in the passenger seat. Drive it Stewart did, never once swapping seats with Stah and bringing home the team’s Class 2 buggy in first place.

Perhaps that was Stewart’s defining moment as a racer, as it proved he had the talent to win races, even on a modest budget. Though he kept his day job (which also yielded the benefit of keeping Stewart in exceptional physical condition), Stewart began to pay a bit more attention to his racing career. In 1975, he captured his first Baja 500 win, driving solo, and backed this up with a 1976 win (also driving solo) in the Baja 1000. For this feat, which required more than 20 hours of driving at speed across the desert, Stewart received a $500 “Ironman” award from Valvoline motor oil. The name stuck, and soon both the media and his competitors were calling Ivan Stewart “Ironman.”

From 1973 to 1983, Stewart amassed more than 30 race wins, capturing “SCORE Driver of the Year” honors four times and “Bilstein Madonna Man of the Year” honors in 1976. The race wins brought consistently better equipment, and by the early 1980s, Stewart began adding series championships to his resume. In 1983, Stewart joined the Precision Preparation Incorporated (PPI) team, and with Toyota backing, quickly began to dominate the sport. Initially, the team focused on the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group (MTEG) stadium series, which featured off-road trucks in a scaled-down stadium environment, racing wheel-to-wheel over a jump and obstacle-laden course. Stewart proved as adept in this environment as he was in the open desert, and captured the Grand National Sport Trucks championship for PPI and Toyota in his rookie year.

In 1984, PPI and Toyota expanded their efforts to include desert racing, and within two years Stewart delivered six class victories and two SCORE world championships. When the team moved into the Class 1 category for the 1985 Baja 1000, Stewart remained the team’s only solo driver. His philosophy was simple – as long as he wasn’t injured, why risk handing off equipment (and a potential victory) to someone else?

While the PPI team enjoyed success in stadiums and some success in the desert, it took until 1993 for Stewart to deliver the first Baja 1000 win for Toyota. The win gave Stewart his second SCORE overall and Unlimited class championship (the first was earned in 1990), and Stewart remains the only driver to capture both championships in a single year. In 1998, Stewart would deliver wins for the team in both the Baja 500 and the Baja 1000, a feat made more incredible by the fact that Stewart was then 53 years old. Desert racing takes a toll on the body, but no one bothered to tell Ivan Stewart that.

During the 12-year run of the MTEG stadium series, Stewart won a record-setting 17 events and captured three championships in the process. In addition to his three Baja 1000 wins and 17 Baja 500 wins, Stewart added four Mint 400 wins and four Parker 400 wins to his resume, and until 2013 was the only driver to win the Baja 1000 (on four wheels) driving solo. Though he never officially retired from off-road racing, Stewart did take a step back in 2000 to focus on launching the ProTruck Racing Organization, and on building vehicles to compete in the series, which never really took off the way that Stewart hoped it would.

Occasionally called out of retirement (as in 2010, when Toyota asked him to run a mostly stock 4Runner in the Baja 1000), Stewart opted to simplify his life in 2010, selling off the assets of his ProTruck business, a collection of race cars and street cars, and even his two-story log cabin, trading it all for a condo in San Diego and a business selling electric bicycles. These days, Stewart continues to serve as a “roving ambassador” for Toyota, called upon to demonstrate the capabilities of Toyota trucks (in an off-road environment, of course) for media and fans alike.

Though he says he has no plans to return to desert racing, this much is certain: It’s never a good idea to count the Ironman out.

7 Responses to “Racing Heroes – Ivan “Ironman” Stewart”

I’ve met The Ironman several times at Toyota events. Hearing him speak and the stories he can tell are always fun. In addition to being a tremendous off-road driver he’s simply a great guy as well. Thanks for the article…

If you’ll notice, all the greats were born around the same time, 1940. About 20 years later advances in technology let their talents flourish, and they became immortal.

Like WWII vets they leave a legacy that’s hard to aspire to, what with things the way they are. I was very fortunate to come of age in the early 1970′s, the last gasp of what America was all about. We will never see that time again.

In my mind I’m topped out in fifth, on my ported 87 CR500 Honda, just hitting the tops of the whoops in Red Rock Canyon. Flying. Fearless.

I was part of the PPI crew that chased for Ivan in many of his races. All I can say was, that he was a very personable guy whom would talk to the President of Toyota one minute and the next he would talk to a 6 year old fan, he was one of a kind. Very easy to talk to. He would sit in the hot trailer with us and tell stories for hours. He always had a smile on his face!!